Who signs what & why it matters
Last year, a campaign group, ‘Bank Signature Forgery Campaign’ (BSFC), was formed in the UK after a series of allegations of forging signatures on court documents in repossession cases against some leading UK financial firms. In this blog, we look further into the matter and discuss the importance of authorised signatory management for fraud prevention and risk management.
On the 9th July 2019, the then Chair of the Treasury Select Committee, MP Nicky Morgan, wrote to the FCA and the National Crime Agency, asking them to engage with a Bank Signature Forgery Campaign group to investigate allegations that some UK banks/lenders had been forging signatures on repossession documents submitted to the Courts.
This followed a report by BBC in its Victoria Derbyshire programme broadcasted on the 5th July 2019. During the programme, a handwriting expert witness in forgery cases said he had investigated a dozen cases where he believed it was highly likely that different people had been signing under the same name.
In response to the Chair’s letter, FCA’s chief executive Andrew Bailey confirmed that he was aware of the potential problem of banks’ paperwork being signed by somebody who is not an authorised signatory.
Furthermore, Steve Baker MP commented that he had also personally seen various signatures that clearly showed that within some institutions there were processes where it appeared that anyone was signing the specified documents.
Since then, the BSFC campaign has received additional support from a number of organisations including the All Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Business Banking and the Police and Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley Police.
However, none of the allegations has been confirmed so far and several banks have already publicly denied any involvement in systemic signature forgery.
Whether ultimately proven or not, an important question still needs to be asked:
“How are banks/lenders managing their authorised signatory lists”?
At best, to avoid mistakes, at worst to prevent fraud.
It’s often difficult to assess the amount of costs related to such signatory fraud. However, according to BBC, in the US for example, banks were fined $25bn (£19bn) in 2012 and had to compensate millions of people for having their homes repossessed.
Mistake or fraud – getting it wrong with your authorised signatures could be costly for both your finances and reputation.
In today’s fast-paced, highly digitised business world, knowing who signs what at any time, whether they are authorised, is proving to be critical for organisations’ effective risk management and data governance.
At Cygnetise, we’ve recognised that need and used the latest blockchain technology to revolutionise the way organisations manage their authorised signatories by making it more efficient, transparent and secure.
With Cygnetise’s signatory management application, organisations can now manage and share their lists of authorised signers in real time online and have a full audit trail of all changes made to their data.